![]() ![]() By contrast males typically average around 3m (10 ft). Females are generally much bigger and heavier than males, with a typical adult length of around 4.6m (15 ft). In one experiment, several people were asked to estimate the length of an anaconda of known size - with almost everyone significantly overestimating. These are almost certainly exaggerations or simple misjudgement - as estimating size of a coiled snake can be surprisingly hard. There are old stories of from the Amazon region telling of snakes reaching 9m (30ft), and even exceeding 18m (60ft). No maximum size limit has been officially determined for anacondas. This may simply be a matter of longevity - as anacondas continue growing throughout their life, and the less human interference in remote regions of the Amazon may be more conducive to a longer life span. However, specimens found in the Pantanal are generally smaller than those found further north in the Amazon. The Green Anaconda, Eunectes murinus, is the largest of the four species - reaching around 6.6m or 22 ft in length. ![]() The two other species not present are the Dark-Spotted Anaconda (found in Northern Brazil and Guiana) and Bolivian Anaconda (found in the Bolivian Amazon regions). There are four different anaconda species, two of which - the Green Anaconda and Yellow Anaconda - are present in the Pantanal. However, in the event of danger they can quickly regurgitate the semi-digested meal, freeing themselves up to escape - although they'll need to catch another meal soon afterwards. The period when digesting it's meal, can be dangerous for anacondas, since they only have limited mobility, and generally just stay where they are. The indigestible bones are eventually regurgitated. The digestion of a single meal can take two weeks or more to digest once the prey has been swallowed. Their meals are infrequent - often with intervals of several months. Typical lifespan is in the range 10-15 years, although some individuals have reached around 25 years.įortunately, unlike the snakes of the movie, anaconda aren't driven by insatiable appetites. The extra muscle mass means that an anaconda weighs about 70% more than a python of equivalent length - with the largest anacondas weighing in the 150-200kg range. ![]() Life in the water helps support the anaconda's heavier weight and girth - making the snakes fatter and more muscular than its land-based cousins. Two decades later, the team guided by David Tarknishvili succeeded in extracting DNA from the old tissue samples to substantiate and verify the specific genetic status of the Beni Anaconda.The bigger size of the anaconda, compared to other large snakes such as pythons, is largely due to its aquatic nature. candidate Lutz Dirksen managed to find a new, fourth anaconda species in the Beni region of Bolivia which he introduced to science as Eunectes beniensis.įirst erroneously regarded as a hybrid between the big Green Anaconda and the smaller Yellow or Paraguay Anaconda, the morphological analysis strongly suggested its status as an own, independent species, the fourth of its genus and growing at least up to 4 m in length. student Mark Auliya, his former fellow Ph.D. Apart from two new insular subspecies of the Reticulated Python-up to 9 m in length and together with the Green Anaconda the longest snake on earth-which were discovered by Museum Koenig's former Ph.D. The giant snakes, however, had some surprises ready for the researchers from Bonn. In contrast, the discovery of large, conspicuous new vertebrate species is much rarer and attracts the attention not only of specialists, but also of the broader public.īut undiscovered large-growing reptiles can be found, as has been shown by the more than dozen new monitor lizard species that have been described by members of the herpetological section of the Museum Koenig in Bonn since 1988. Nowadays, the discovery of a new species is for the taxonomically working zoologist not very unusual, as long as these new species are small and inconspicuous. The new findings have been published in Amphibia-Reptilia.
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